A tribute site to all the fabulous and fierce drag queens of the world!
This tends to be a "Paris, Britney, Lindsay, and otherwise skanky-assed, washed-up, wasted, tired, overpublicized, va-jay-jay showing" free zone!
Bow Down Bitches!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

It appears that during the filming of Lifeboat, our dear Tallulah Bankhead picked up a nasty habit from Carmen Miranda: one of not wearing any panties under her dress.

Well many of the cast and set members were quite upset about this, especially as Tallulah was constantly getting in and out of that lifeboat during filming. Finally someone visiting the set went, a female reporter complained to Darryl F. Zanuck, head of the studio. Zanuck sent a man to talk to the director, Alfred Hitchcock, about the problem.

Hitchcock, who was always amused by Tallulah's antics, refused to interfere and told the man that it wasn't his department. The man asked, "Well, whose department is it?" Hitchcock mused for a moment and then said, "Makeup, or perhaps hairdressing."

Thursday, January 17, 2008

I just want to point out a quick site that I have been visiting lately. All you young'uns take note of how life used to be for us bar flies before Stonewall - it is all here at Gay Chronicles - Before Stonewall Bar Guide.

Compiled by the fabulous Len Evans you can see what bars in your city existed pre-Stonewall along with some great stories of how patrons behaved or what hardships police and politicians imposed on our brothers and sisters.

My favorite story has to do with Tallulah Bankhead, of course, and her experience at the 365 Club:

"There was a gay bar where the air line terminal used to be on Taylor Street. It had a special shaped staircase, and this lovely oval shaped bar with back to back registers. You didn't know if you were looking into a mirror or not the way it was set up. They had muzak type music, but there wasn't any juke box, they had a painting on the wall with a microphone in the corner and a slot, and you put your money into the slot and the girl would come and ask you your selection. This was a piss elegant bar. As Tellulah Bankhead said as she went in, "This is really a white collar cocsuckers bar." There was a white balustrade and red carpeting and all the queens just loved to walk down that spiral staircase. It was the cuff-link crowd."

Hello my dears! Miss Tills has just gotten home from a short trip to Reno, NV this past weekend. Why Reno? Well if any of you queens are worth your salt, you know it is a big focus of the 1939 classic The Women. Starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Rosalind Russell and many others, to me it is the ultimate bitch movie.

As with most movies in the late 1930s and early to mid 1940s, they were very heavy with dialogue, often delivered at a fast clip. The best example is another Rosalind Russell vehicle, His Girl Friday from 1940.

So, I paid a visit to Reno. No, I did not get a divorce but I did see the Virginia Street bridge right near the courthouse where women, I've been told, would throw their wedding bands into the Truckee River to solemnize the act and start their new life. Nor did I manage to find the dude (dudette?) ranch run by Marjorie Mains.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Miss Tills has been known to take up the needle now and then. Not the kind that leaves track marks you silly bitch - I leave that for Amy Winehouse.

As a big fan of the old "stitch and bitch" parties, I usually just lie on my divan, bifocals hovering on the tip of my nose waiting for some sniveling future maid to con me into working at the House of Miss Tilly. Vera Donovan's got nothin' on me!

Check out a great site called Subversive Cross-Stitch - these kits just slay me! I can't decide if I want "Don't Make Me Cut You" or "Shut Your Whore Mouth."

Do you remember this show back in the day? I used to love me some Teresa Graves especially when she was on Laugh-In. A very funny and shockingly, take-your-breath-away beauty. She left us way too soon.

This is from some low-rent, trashy, broke-down muthafucka of a Dirty Harry ripoff movie - and from Canada at that! (love to all my Canadian bitches!) The exact title is A Special Magnum for Tony Saitta from 1976. Miss Tills was only seven years old when this fetid turd popped out. Yeah right.

You bitches will probably think this is a dated view of drag queens (the IMDB plot for this flick says they are "transvestites") but it was typical of films in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

But they sho can throw down, can't they? I love it when my queen sistahs can open up a big 'ole can of fierce whoop-ass on a tired old dick like Stuart Masterson. And why does whoop-ass always come in a can?

About Me

One big, fat, crazy, vociferous, old-school drag queen. I was born on Stonewall Day baby and I appreciate those hard-workin', hard-livin' girls and guys who paved the way for all LGBT people. Our people no longer have a sense of our own history, our roots. Put down that cocktail or that cock, pick up a book and read about "how it used to be". Then come back and talk to me when you know who these people were or are: Harry Hay,
Ralph Kameny, Evelyn Hooker, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, Harvey Milk, Barbara Gittings, Allan Berube, Troy Perry, John Boswell, Alfred Kinsey, Leonard Malkovich, Rev. Cecil Williams, Alan Turing, Jose Saria, Elaine Noble, Sheila Keuhl, Pat Califia, Martin Duberman, Randy Shilts, Mel White, Oscar Wilde, Benjamin Britten, Susan Sontag